Friday 30 September 2011
Main Artist
This is the person who we have decided to use in our music video. He plays for my football team and is very passionate about his music.
He can also play the guitar, as we plan to use a guitar as one of our main props this helps. Although he will not be playing the actual guitar he will be able to make it look as if he is, as apposed to someone just moving their hand pointlessly up and down the guitar.
He also does singing and organises concerts at his school, he will be miming our song, so the fact that he has experience in learning the words to a song will make the process a lot easier for us. His musical experience could also help us as he may be able to offer his opinion if he believes something does not look right or if we could make something better.
We all believe that he fits the role well, he also looks the part and dresses in a similar fashion to what we wanted our main character to dress.
Thursday 29 September 2011
Genre
Alternative Rock
The Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, Oasis, Weezer, Radiohead, The Smiths, The White Stripes, Linkin Park and Muse, are all examples of Alternative Rock bands. The term alternative means that the music is different to mainstream rock.
Something we have considered is using is an acoustic guitar, something we have to consider are what instruments are common in Alternative rock videos. These are:
Electric Guitar
Bass guitar
Drums
Keyboards
The Main Character
This is the sort of person that we are going to use as the main character of our video. This is one of the most important part of the video because if our main character does not look realistic the video wont look MTV quality. If the main character is what people are going remember the video for, if we have a person who fits our genre of music and someone our audience can relate with. Looking back on work from previous years that I did not like the main characters were either too young or did not look realistic, some of the work that I like used a person who would not have looked out of place in a MTV video, which is the effect we are looking to achieve.
Clothing
Here is a quick montage of clothes that I believe would suit our main character and our genre of music. We ha
ve decided as a group that our artist will be wearing a coat, because it is going to be set outside it would be appropriate to do so. The main brands we have looked at are Top Man and Urban Outfitters for the clothing and Schuh for the shoes. These brands are relevant because these are the places that our target audience are most likely to shop in, so it makes sense that the clothes our main character wears are from these shops. Clothing is an important element to consider as our character must fit in with the genre that we are using. It is also important for our artist to look current and up with the lastest fashion trends, as it will make the video look modern and current.
Top 6 Alternative Rock Songs
This is the current best six songs for the genre that we have chosen. This will be a useful source to look at throughout the process as we can also watch the videos that accompany these songs and they may provide some ideas. We will also be able to track what is current in terms of videos as we move along the process of creating our video.
The Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day, Oasis, Weezer, Radiohead, The Smiths, The White Stripes, Linkin Park and Muse, are all examples of Alternative Rock bands. The term alternative means that the music is different to mainstream rock.
Something we have considered is using is an acoustic guitar, something we have to consider are what instruments are common in Alternative rock videos. These are:
Electric Guitar
Bass guitar
Drums
Keyboards
The Main Character
This is the sort of person that we are going to use as the main character of our video. This is one of the most important part of the video because if our main character does not look realistic the video wont look MTV quality. If the main character is what people are going remember the video for, if we have a person who fits our genre of music and someone our audience can relate with. Looking back on work from previous years that I did not like the main characters were either too young or did not look realistic, some of the work that I like used a person who would not have looked out of place in a MTV video, which is the effect we are looking to achieve.Clothing
Here is a quick montage of clothes that I believe would suit our main character and our genre of music. We ha
ve decided as a group that our artist will be wearing a coat, because it is going to be set outside it would be appropriate to do so. The main brands we have looked at are Top Man and Urban Outfitters for the clothing and Schuh for the shoes. These brands are relevant because these are the places that our target audience are most likely to shop in, so it makes sense that the clothes our main character wears are from these shops. Clothing is an important element to consider as our character must fit in with the genre that we are using. It is also important for our artist to look current and up with the lastest fashion trends, as it will make the video look modern and current.Top 6 Alternative Rock Songs
This is the current best six songs for the genre that we have chosen. This will be a useful source to look at throughout the process as we can also watch the videos that accompany these songs and they may provide some ideas. We will also be able to track what is current in terms of videos as we move along the process of creating our video.
Audience
Who Are They?
These are the people that we are going to have to adapt our video for, if our video does not appeal to our target audience then we have not done a good enough job. Before we can start to cater for them we have to accurately define who they are, not just what age or gender they are but what are their interests where do they shop for clothes or music. For this I am going to use the UK Tribes website. We identified our audience is Alternative as it fits with our genre Alternative rock. On the right is an image from the Uk tribes website that highlights our audiences interest and where thye get thier music from.
Our audi
ence are interested in the music magazine NME, this is good as our music genre that we have chosen fits is incorporated in to this magazine. Here is picture of the artists of our song, Noel Gallagher appearing on the front cover of this magazine. The fact that our artist had already got links with a magazine our audience like means that we have already catered to some of their interests, they will hear the song in our video and relate it to the style of NME.
Our target audience watch 4oD, which means they enjoy watching programmes like 8 out of 10 cats, The Inbetweeners, Fresh Meat and Hollyoaks. These television shows often play music from our genre, whether that be in transitions or in their subtitles. The UK tribes website states that our target audience shop in Top Man, this will be something we have to consider when choosing our artists clothing. We want the audience to be able to relate with and respect the artist because of the clothing they are wearing.
On the right is XFM's current play list. This came up as a radio station that our target audience listened to. As you can see the song that we have chosen in on their current play list, this is significant because it means that our song is relevant to our target audience of alternative
These are the people that we are going to have to adapt our video for, if our video does not appeal to our target audience then we have not done a good enough job. Before we can start to cater for them we have to accurately define who they are, not just what age or gender they are but what are their interests where do they shop for clothes or music. For this I am going to use the UK Tribes website. We identified our audience is Alternative as it fits with our genre Alternative rock. On the right is an image from the Uk tribes website that highlights our audiences interest and where thye get thier music from.
Our audi
ence are interested in the music magazine NME, this is good as our music genre that we have chosen fits is incorporated in to this magazine. Here is picture of the artists of our song, Noel Gallagher appearing on the front cover of this magazine. The fact that our artist had already got links with a magazine our audience like means that we have already catered to some of their interests, they will hear the song in our video and relate it to the style of NME.
On the right is XFM's current play list. This came up as a radio station that our target audience listened to. As you can see the song that we have chosen in on their current play list, this is significant because it means that our song is relevant to our target audience of alternative
Ideas for Video
Bubbl Brainstorm
Here is our brainstorming process for our video. This is only a starter, these ideas will all be developed and some of them cut out. For this I used 'bubbl', its easy and effective, it allowed us to brainstorm easily and it is also saved so it cant be misplaced like a piece of paper would. It also allowed us to provide something that would look aesthetically pleasing.
In our brainstorm we looked at all the areas that we need to cover when making a music video and jotted down our initial ideas, a good thing with Bubbl is that it allows you to develop your ideas in the form of a spider diagram. Then when you think you are finished you can have a look through and add stuff that you may have missed.
Here is our brainstorming process for our video. This is only a starter, these ideas will all be developed and some of them cut out. For this I used 'bubbl', its easy and effective, it allowed us to brainstorm easily and it is also saved so it cant be misplaced like a piece of paper would. It also allowed us to provide something that would look aesthetically pleasing.
In our brainstorm we looked at all the areas that we need to cover when making a music video and jotted down our initial ideas, a good thing with Bubbl is that it allows you to develop your ideas in the form of a spider diagram. Then when you think you are finished you can have a look through and add stuff that you may have missed.
Planning procces
Here is our planning process and how we got to choosing our song 'What A Life', for this I used the programme prezi for this. Its very easy to use and allows me to show our planning stage without just typing it.
Lyrics to What A Life
Lyrics | Noel Gallagher lyrics - AKA... What A Life lyrics
The lyrics are a crucial part to our video, a key factor to a successful music video is how well the lyrics fit the actions of the main character. The obvious lyric is 'what a life', which is what we have based our main idea around, but we do not want to over do the link between music and lyrics and have every single lyric apparent in our video. Music videos tend to pick out a few phrases and develop them in to the basis of the video.
Wednesday 28 September 2011
Video Analysis
Don't Look Back in Anger- Oasis
As Oasis a potential band that we may use for our video I have decided to analyse one of their video, to see how they link their style of music to a video. This will also make a good reference point and could provide us with some inspiration if we decide to use an Oasis song for our video.
A general convention of Oasis's video is half performance, half storyline as seen in my previous focus on the video Stand By me. This video is no different the appearance of instruments like the drums and guitar are frequent because Oasis are a band means they can involve all of the group members. In our video we are going have our character with a guitar in which he will sing the chorus of the song, we feel as a group that the song needs a singular setting for the chorus.
Roughly 8 seconds into the video there are some sharp cuts that fit to the musics beat, this highlights how important it is to relate the video to the music. The first line that Noel sings is 'slip inside the eye of your mind', when he says this he is holding a magnifying glass over his eye so its emphasised, highlighting the link to the lyric. The magnifying glass symbolises exploring someones mind, although its not neccessary to have a visual for each lyric this works well. During the early stages of the video great emphasis is placed on the group themselves, this is done because they want to increase possible sales by making the band the focul point.
The title of the song highlights the sense of voyuerism, the term 'Look' indicates that there is going to be a strong notion of looking. For example the women looking down on them as they pull up to the house in the cab. Throughout the video we see the characters looking directly down the camera, this helps to involve the audience and brings them into the storyline. This also occurs when there is a line of women dressed in white of which we see two look directly at us. Throughout the video there are reaccuring objects and shots. For example the low angle shot looking down on the black cab is seen twice, also the image of the white chair is seen at the start and Noel is sitting on the same chair near the end of the video. We also see the British flag at the start and end of the video. This is a good way of giving things importance if they appear more than once.
The transitions in the video are reflective of the pace and beat of the video, the song is slow paced meaning the transitions are generally slow. The transitions consist of cross dissolves, it would not fit with the slow paced of the editing if there were fast cuts. This is something that we must consider when making our video, people should be able to visualize what our videos transitions will be like based on the music alone. Our song is of a similar pace to this so we will be using similar shots and transitions to this video.
The final shot of the video relates to the music, the fact that he is looking backwards out of a cab. He is reinforcing the message of the song which is 'Do look back in anger'. This is a conclusive way to end the video because this is the last thing that the audience takes away from the video.
As Oasis a potential band that we may use for our video I have decided to analyse one of their video, to see how they link their style of music to a video. This will also make a good reference point and could provide us with some inspiration if we decide to use an Oasis song for our video.
A general convention of Oasis's video is half performance, half storyline as seen in my previous focus on the video Stand By me. This video is no different the appearance of instruments like the drums and guitar are frequent because Oasis are a band means they can involve all of the group members. In our video we are going have our character with a guitar in which he will sing the chorus of the song, we feel as a group that the song needs a singular setting for the chorus.
Roughly 8 seconds into the video there are some sharp cuts that fit to the musics beat, this highlights how important it is to relate the video to the music. The first line that Noel sings is 'slip inside the eye of your mind', when he says this he is holding a magnifying glass over his eye so its emphasised, highlighting the link to the lyric. The magnifying glass symbolises exploring someones mind, although its not neccessary to have a visual for each lyric this works well. During the early stages of the video great emphasis is placed on the group themselves, this is done because they want to increase possible sales by making the band the focul point.
The title of the song highlights the sense of voyuerism, the term 'Look' indicates that there is going to be a strong notion of looking. For example the women looking down on them as they pull up to the house in the cab. Throughout the video we see the characters looking directly down the camera, this helps to involve the audience and brings them into the storyline. This also occurs when there is a line of women dressed in white of which we see two look directly at us. Throughout the video there are reaccuring objects and shots. For example the low angle shot looking down on the black cab is seen twice, also the image of the white chair is seen at the start and Noel is sitting on the same chair near the end of the video. We also see the British flag at the start and end of the video. This is a good way of giving things importance if they appear more than once.
The transitions in the video are reflective of the pace and beat of the video, the song is slow paced meaning the transitions are generally slow. The transitions consist of cross dissolves, it would not fit with the slow paced of the editing if there were fast cuts. This is something that we must consider when making our video, people should be able to visualize what our videos transitions will be like based on the music alone. Our song is of a similar pace to this so we will be using similar shots and transitions to this video.The final shot of the video relates to the music, the fact that he is looking backwards out of a cab. He is reinforcing the message of the song which is 'Do look back in anger'. This is a conclusive way to end the video because this is the last thing that the audience takes away from the video.
Back to the drawing board
We decided that all our previous choices were to obvious and that people knew the songs and artists voices. The big question we had to answer was how do you find a song that you have never heard of? I came up with the idea of going on the soccer am website, and
looking at all the featured bands that have appeared on the show. As from previous experiences I have seen a band on soccer am and liked their music even though I had never heard of them. I looked at the featured bands and nothing jumped out at me, I started looking through the songs that play when they show the goals of the week etc. I clicked on Noel Gallagher song 'What a Life'. Noel Gallagher was a perfect artist for us, because we all really like Oasis, and Noels voice is key to some songs, but this song was a less known song but still sounded like an Oasis song.I was listening to the song and I loved it, I knew that I had heard it somewhere else but could not put my finger on it. Thats when Adam realised that the song was on the latest Vauxhall advert, advertising the England football team.
One of the great things apart from the actual song is the fact that there is not an original music video, this means there is nothing that people can compare it to.
Thursday 22 September 2011
Mood Board
Here is a general idea of artists that we have thought about using. Most of these are bands with an indie style, this is the style that we want our main character to have. Most of these images are shot on the street, this is a location that we are defiantly going to use, baring a few of the artists they are mainly dressed in black or darker colours. This could be reflective of the genre, or maybe the song that are shooting the video, this is something that we will have to consider if our song is reflective or about loss we will have to dress our character in darker colours to reflect the mood.
Where to start ...
The first thing we needed to decide was a song. We brainstormed ideas of potential artists, we wanted a song that had a storyline that we could develop. Some of the artists we started looking at were:
Through the hard times, people say that you gotta be strong
Through these hard times, people say you gotta keep going on
Through the hard times, people try and kick you when you're down
Through these hard times, don't it always seem like there's never anyone around to help you when you're strung out?
(Through these hard times)
When you're falling out, no one seems to care
(Through these hard times)
They just run you down, tell you that life isn't fair, no.
Plan B - Hard Times lyrics | LyricsMode.com
Another plus point of the song is that everyone can relate to it, everyone experiences hard times in their life, so they can relate to the lyrics, if our audience can not relate to our video then why will they watch it. We were imagining the video being shot in London with the main character walking around and on his way seeing people who are having a 'hard time'. We could also throw in the characters personal experiences via flashbacks.
From the very start we decided we wanted a song that was not well known and from an artist who people did not really know. We felt that throughout our video people would be constantly recognizing Plan B's voice, taking away the reality from the video. We decided as a group that we wanted our video looked as if it could be on MTV, and not as if we'd just chosen our favourite artists and made a video. So back to the drawing board we went.
- Scouting for Girls- James Bond and Need a Holiday
- Coldplay- Scientist
- Oasis- Lyla
- The Rifles
- Plan B- Hard Times
- The Script- For the first time
Through the hard times, people say that you gotta be strong
Through these hard times, people say you gotta keep going on
Through the hard times, people try and kick you when you're down
Through these hard times, don't it always seem like there's never anyone around to help you when you're strung out?
(Through these hard times)
When you're falling out, no one seems to care
(Through these hard times)
They just run you down, tell you that life isn't fair, no.
Plan B - Hard Times lyrics | LyricsMode.com
Another plus point of the song is that everyone can relate to it, everyone experiences hard times in their life, so they can relate to the lyrics, if our audience can not relate to our video then why will they watch it. We were imagining the video being shot in London with the main character walking around and on his way seeing people who are having a 'hard time'. We could also throw in the characters personal experiences via flashbacks.
From the very start we decided we wanted a song that was not well known and from an artist who people did not really know. We felt that throughout our video people would be constantly recognizing Plan B's voice, taking away the reality from the video. We decided as a group that we wanted our video looked as if it could be on MTV, and not as if we'd just chosen our favourite artists and made a video. So back to the drawing board we went.
The Brief
After much deliberation, we decided on our group. It was Adam Ralph, Matt Gutteridge and I, the group works well as we all have similar tastes in music.
We knew that we would have to make a music video but we had to decide which two of the ancillary tasks we will be doing. It was a pretty simple decision that we all agreed on the two that are highlighted. Below is our brief.
A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:
We knew that we would have to make a music video but we had to decide which two of the ancillary tasks we will be doing. It was a pretty simple decision that we all agreed on the two that are highlighted. Below is our brief.
A promotion package for the release of an album, to include a music promo video, together with two of the following three options:
- a website homepage for the band;
- a cover for its release as part of the digipak (CD/DVD package);
- a magazine advertisement for the digipak (CD/DVD package).
Thursday 8 September 2011
Camera Shots and Effects that I liked
I want the music video that we produce to be current, so I decided to look through a current single, Wretch ft Josh Kumra- Don't Go. I was watching the video and after 27 secs I saw this shot.(picture right)The reflection in the water is a good shot to symbolize a reflective mood and a unique way of showing that the main character in a shot without using a simple medium shot.
Here is another shot fro
m the same video, this is a good shot to show a coming together of two people, instead of just having a shot of them jumping into each others arms. This would be a good shot to use if a couple were breaking up as you could have the hands moving apart. Then at the end of the video if the two characters get back together the hands could re unite.This next point is a transition, I came across it when searching for a shot of the sun rising in the video Watch the Sun Come Up- Example. This transition is one of the best trans
itions I have come across when looking through music videos. Throughout the video a cartoon affect is used for transitions, this transition starts at 43 secs and ends two seconds later. Example is shot walking up to 
buildings which are in normal colour and stature. They are then transformed into a black and white cartoon.(see right). The buildings then fold up until a flat shape and then turns into the sea. This cartoon is then wiped so the white cartoon changes to normal sea. (see left)
This shot on the right, is an effective way to show time passing, the shot works and also keeps the continuity of the video. Rather than showing the man shaving from start to finish its shows three way split screen.
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